Left Alone
by Farla
Summary: A story examining the ideas, world and morality of Left Behind. When the Rapture comes, Adalia is not taken. She's left in a slowly unraveling world, trying to do the right thing as good and evil become steadily more ambiguous. Ch7: Of the End
1. Discussing

So it is faintly possible this is not what anyone meant when they voted for "post something new". And also that starting another long chapter story right now indicates I have lost whatever fragile grip upon sanity I had.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this story are not my own, except for the ones that are. If you think you disagree with me, you may not; if you think I agree with you, I may not. Please tread warily.

* * *

Prologue: The Newspaper

Adalia picked the plastic-wrapped morning newspaper off the driveway. The headlines were, as usual, obscured by the early dew and she didn't spare more than a glance at them before heading back inside. She didn't generally read it, anyway, that was for the other members of the family. Personally, she thought it was archaic, though she would skim the occasional article they pointed out.

"Thanks, dear," her father said, taking it and stripping the outer plastic before unrolling the paper. Approaching fifty, Daniel Gottfrey was still in good health. "Sit and eat breakfast."

"I'm not really hungry," Adalia replied, sitting and reaching for her coffee. She sipped the sweet drink contentedly as her father rolled his eyes and muttered, "Hyperglycemic."

"I'm toasting an English muffin, want one?" her stepmother, Celia Passeri-Gottfrey asked, slipping the two halves into the toaster.

"I'm really not..."

"You need to eat actual food, especially with all the sugar you put in your coffee. It's not good for you."

"Hm," her father said, sounding surprised.

"Hm?"

He was staring at the headline. "Israel's buying off the rest of the middle east with _produce_. You remember that thing about new farmland?"

"That new 'fertilizer' they were talking about?"

"They're still saying that here."

"Are they at least still calling it alleged?"

"Doesn't seem like it."

"Honestly, _fertilizer_," grumbled her stepmother. "As if that's the problem growing things in the desert. And they still don't have a nuclear arsenal too, right."

"Doesn't look like they mention that, so I assume so."

"I swear, they wouldn't have half so many problems if they weren't determined to be all secretive. Adalia, what do you want on your English muffin?"

"Can I have marmalade?"

"Let me see..." she said, opening the refrigeration and examining the jars on the door a moment. "Here you go."

"I don't know, seems like they might be on to something. They're still refusing to share anything about their formula or whatever it is, but they're willing to share the results. Actually...pretty ballsy move here. They're willing to use it on any Israeli land. Heh."

"What?" She took the paper and began to read the article itself. Adalia watched the two of them with sleepy disinterest. "'Willing to use', why would they say... Oh. There's no way that would work."

"It's an improvement over artillery, at least," her father said, sounding amused.

"It's not an improvement if it doesn't work."

"What're you talking about?" Adalia asked.

"It's a land grab...or an attempt at one," her stepmother explained. "They won't share the fertilizer, or whatever it is, on any non-Israeli land, but any states that decide to give land over to Israel..."

"That's clever." She took a bite of marmalade-slathered muffin.

"Except that farming isn't a big economic factor, not in this day and age," her father pointed out. "And that you're dealing with people who'd rather blow themselves to kingdom come than allow Israel to keep the land they've got right now. Even the farmed land was ten...even a thousand times more productive than normal, well, you'd just run into the problem of devaluing whatever staple they're producing so it wasn't worth as much."

"I wouldn't be surprised if that were part of the point," interjected Adalia's stepmother, still skimming the article. "If they're really producing that much more, they'll drive everyone else out of business. Granted, a lot of them don't rely on farming economically but it won't go over well with the farmers themselves. I doubt that'd be enough to convince anyone to hand over the land, of course." She handed the paper back.

"Might even backfire by angering everyone," her father agreed, taking the paper.

"Huh? What would? Who?"

"Brotherkins is up early," Adalia commented, then took another bite.

"What is it? What are you talking about? Is it interesting?" Noah asked. He grabbed the back of a chair and used it for leverage as he bounced up and down, more from morning wakefulness than impatience. At eleven, he was still a ways off from the sleepy lethargy of a teenager.

"Don't thump so much, you'll wake Adrian," his mother said. "You know how cranky he gets."

"But what' you talking about?"

"Israel. They're growing crops."

"Oh." Bored by the answer, he stopped bouncing and went to find the cereal. "I guess that's good," he said, sounding dubious. "Because there are starving people and stuff."

"There's more than enough to feed everyone now. Increasing production makes starvation worse, not better."

Noah paused and turned to look at his father for a moment, waiting for him to laugh. Then, looking somewhat betrayed, he turned to his mother and whined, "Mom, Dad's tricking me again. Tell him he's not supposed to do that."

"As strange as it seems, dear, that's how it works out."

"Then why's Israel doing it?"

"Because they've taken leave of their senses. Perhaps they're hoping to put all the existing Middle Eastern farmers out of business under the assumption having even more impoverished, bitter Arabs there will solve their problems."

"More likely," Celia interrupted, "the entire thing is just some sort of odd stunt, and something more sensible will eventually come out a few months from now."


	2. Intellectual

Dishonesty

"That's an odd name," her roommate commented when she introduced herself. Her roommate's own name was painfully plain, not even Elizabeth but just "Betty."

"It's from the bible. My mother picked it." Adalia laughed quickly. "It's actually a boy's name, it turns out. She didn't research it well."

"So, then you're Christian?" Betty had a short chain around her neck with a small, unornamented cross.

Adalia nodded. "Yeah." She'd gone to church her whole life, except for a gap when she had been very young, after her mother died and before her father remarried, and the few miscellaneous Sundays she'd missed over the years. She hadn't really thought much of it, and although she wasn't intending to at the time, when Sunday rolled around she'd decide to stay in bed.

"Oh, that's good," Betty said. She sounded a bit relieved. "My father was kind of worried, you know, there are a lot of wiccans in college these days."

Adalia didn't know much of anything about Wiccans, so she agreed and they shifted easily over to discussing how they'd divide up the room.

It was several months later that the issue of rapture first came up.

She'd never heard of it, and said as much.

Betty's eyes had nearly sparkled with the excitement of a chance tell her, and she immediately launched into an with gusto. The Rapture itself would be practically the opening act, Adalia gathered, as Betty continued to say that afterward, there would be the tribulation, with things like the rise of the antichrist, seas turning to blood, and a one-world government.

Adalia had laughed when she heard that last part and said jokingly, "Well, we're a long way off then."

Her roommate shook her head gravely and said in a serious undertone, "The U.N." But then she'd lightened up and added, "But neither of us have anything to worry about, because we'll be Raptured up before it all begins."

By then Adalia wasn't so sure of that. She'd been taking introductory philosophy and world history courses, college requirements, and learning about so many other views she'd never even thought of before. She'd gone to the local church twice, feeling adrift, only to feel more lost after hearing the sermons. The pastor there was completely different than the one in the church she'd gone since she was a baby, speaking about things like social responsibility and environmental stewardship. Not only were there all sorts of other religions and beliefs, but even the one she thought was her own turned out to be as strange and diverse as the rest. Christian was turning out not to be a single label, and she wasn't sure any longer it even applied to her.

She didn't share this with her roommate, who tended to dismiss large chunks of the college curriculum. They got along well because Adalia rarely had any strong feelings about the subjects Betty did, and she just agreed. If she mentioned something like that, Betty would simply respond with whatever she felt was the right thing, no explanation needed, which wasn't Adalia's problem at all.

"You should read..." her roommate would begin occasionally, and list one piece or another of apocalyptic Christian literature, usually followed by the twin recommendations that Adalia would love it and that it was virtually gospel in truth, modern-day prophesy of what was to come soon yet never did. The first few times, Adalia picked them up, but she never liked them. They were about something she felt no real connection to, dropping references to things Betty had probably grown up with but her own church had never so much as mentioned, and she felt some subtle unease reading them that she couldn't quite articulate. She usually stopped reading them at some point midway through and left them unfinished, only reaching the end of a book twice and both times leaving the sequel untouched.

They didn't feel relevant, either. Betty said things were supposed to get worse and worse until the end, but things were fine. Better than fine, even, improving. Israel had expanded peacefully and promptly switched from staple food crops to cash, only producing enough to feed themselves and the numerous states that petitioned for aid. Most of the remaining Muslim states were voluntarily suggesting entering into an extended union with Israel - a way to connect to their burgeoning economic power in a way other than using the formula on their own lands. Israel had responded well, eager to put the violence of the past behind. Their current system was to break between farming and livestock, with Israel exporting the animals' fodder and the Muslim states raising them. Despite international interest, they'd held off on growing anything suitable for biofuels, while other Middle East countries stepped up their oil production and used the funds to build new factories for ethanol production. Her mom's warning about destabilization hadn't come true, perhaps because after the first initial crops, the Israelis had been extremely careful to avoid damaging the Middle East economies.

Other economies hadn't faired so well, but Adalia's teachers largely treated that as a good thing, and it was an unqualified positive in her own life. The student cafeteria now had a bowl of passionfruit by the door for anyone to take - the orange sized fruits were now barely a dime each on the market, and many other fruits were even cheaper. Australian farmers were going under, unable to compete, which her biology teacher had described as a boon to the environment and passed out information on organizations purchasing the land for habitat reclamation.

"The earth," her teacher had elaborated, "is not something made for us to use up, and we're not going to get a new one when we're finished. This is all we're got, kids. For centuries, western civilization has pursued unsustainable farming practices, like Australia's insistence on growing crops that need more water than falls in that area, or the our own midwest apparently made up solely of idiots who don't think it matters that there won't be water there in twenty years, since Jesus will show up in ten."

Israel wasn't just improving Adalia's access to snacks. They were negotiating with the Catholic church to supply food for various charities, and bankrolling UN groups to help encourage the shift to subsistence farming among the less developed parts of the world. Rumors were going around that there were genetic engineering attempts too, creating plants that could manufacture everything from vaccines to spider silk. She felt a bit uneasy about the idea of eating altered plants, but found the idea itself exciting in a more remote, science-fictiony way.

And while it wasn't perfect for everybody, generally, Adalia thought those having trouble had earned it. Her teacher had been adamant that the Australian farmers had been hurting the environment, as had most of the developing countries. Plus, the demand for crops had been hurting the poor people of those countries too, her history teacher had said. They weren't making a profit, the big corporations who bought and sold to them were, and they'd be much better off now than sinking into poverty like they were before. And Russia, which was among those clamoring for the formula and, their economy already shaky after the currency shakeups and slide toward a dictatorship, was being damaged by the restructuring of the market, but wouldn't have had half so many problems if they didn't insist on spending what little money they did have on stockpiling even more weapons, her history teacher had said. It was stupid, anyway. The Cold War was over, everybody knew that.

In fact, the closest thing to a problem Israel's sudden bounty was for Adalia was that most of the teachers found it irritating. Her professors, she discovered, had a similar reaction to the basic idea of Israel's explanation as her mom had. Her biology teacher, overhearing one too many students refer to it as a fertilizer, had devoted half a class to brutally dissecting one of the articles on the subject, an interview with the chemist credited for the discovery.

"This is what is wrong with the media," her professor had opened, and proceeded to explain in great detail why anyone saying water wasn't an issue in Israel was not only a liar, but a dumb one. He'd then asked the class if anyone could summarize the three main points of what he'd said.

"That sand _is_ nutrient-rich," one boy said simply.

"That the real problem is the heat and water evaporation - it dries so fast things like salt build up unless you're very careful," a girl volunteered.

"That you hate this chemist guy."

"I don't hate him," the professor had denied immediately. "I support Israel and I'm sure they have good reason to keep secrets. I hate the _reporter_ who just swallowed this crap and asked for more." Some giggled. "Last point, anyone?"

"That they get their water from desalination plants running on oil. It's really expensive to 'soak the sand' even though they technically could, and also, it changes the ocean's salt content if you take it up too fast."

"Right. Now, bear in mind this isn't even the biggest problem with their story, just the most obvious. Personally, Israel seems to have figured out a way to hook plants up to nuclear reactors or something. If you look at how much they're shipping, there's no way their plants could do it on the amount of sunlight that falls in the area no matter how many tons of miracle-gro is getting dumped on the soil. Which would go a long way toward explaining why they're keeping mum about their 'formula', but Janet could no doubt explain the finer points of this better. Anyone interested should consider taking her botany course next semester.

"At any rate, the moral here is that much of the media consists of idiots and you shouldn't trust everything you read. With luck, when you finish your college education you'll be able to read critically enough to notice and work things out yourself. If not, well, you've just wasted a great deal of money. Moving on."

Adalia sometimes picked up the newspaper in the afternoon. The college had a subscription and there were several free bins around campus. She'd stopped watching the news, though, and had never listend to it on the radio, so it was her roommate who first told her what had happened.

"Russia nuked Israel!" she'd yelled excitedly, running up. "Mom just called me!"

Adalia dimly registered that Betty seemed pleased with this, but was too busy stammering in shock to think much of it.

"Isn't that wonderful?!" Betty had continued. She was glowing with happiness, her cheeks pink.

"That's horrible! Did anyone survive?"

"Huh? Oh. _Oh._ No, everyone's fine. God destroyed the bombs before they could hurt anybody! They all blew up in the air."

"But that's what nuclear missiles are supposed to do," Adalia stammered. "Are you sure?"

"No, like, way high up," Betty said, throwing her arms upward to punctuate. "And God blocked the radiation too!"

Adalia wasn't able to make sense of that, and couldn't imagine how it could be true. She wasn't sure what else might have happened that Betty had dropped, not considering it important, or gotten wrong. "Let me go turn on the TV."

They didn't have one in their room, so Adalia and Betty headed to the dorm floor's lounge. She turned it to CNN.

As it turned out, the people there didn't seem to have any more idea of what had happened than Betty. Not how many missiles had been launched, just that there were some, if any or all of them had been nuclear, just that it was possible, or what had happened to them, just that there had been some odd weather. Israel was claiming the number of missiles they'd seen on radar had been enough to take Russia's entire arsenal. Russia denied this, alternatively trying to underplay their attack and emphasize that they still had plenty of bombs to drop should anyone _else_ decide to go with a preemptive strike. They were similarly adamant that none had been nuclear, which the CNN reporters seemed to find more plausible, despite Israel claims that they were finding nuclear material amid the wreckage. As to how many missiles, the general consensus seemed to be that both stories were unbelievable - while Russia's story seemed false, the idea they'd launched their whole arsenal at the country as Israel claimed was a still more impossible one. They switched channels and found more of the same.

Other students trickled in, and before long, the room was crowded with them, all looking to the television for answers it didn't have.

Adalia felt a weird, disconnected sort of unease. Nothing bad had actually happened, but the drastic, inexplicable nature of the attack scared her. It was like the rug being yanked out from under her feet - countries still went to war without any right. There wouldn't even be warning, a lead up where she would know they had some sort of reason to do this, the person in charge might just decide to do so when it made no sense at all. And if this had happened once, it could happen again - America just suddenly deciding to launch missiles at France, or Australia bombing America, inexplicably and with no warning at all. She hadn't ever thought of that happening in the real world today like it did in her history book.

As supper time approached, Adalia finally tore herself away.

"It's the sign of the End Times," Betty said perkily as they headed to the cafeteria.

"That was definitely a miracle," Adalia said, for what else _could_ it be, "but why's it a sign? Just because it's a miracle?"

"Because it's part of the prophesy! Israel will be attacked and that's the signal for the Rapture, that's what the prophesy says. One of the books I read even said exactly this, that Russia would launch their whole force, and it'd get destroyed by hail, and then they'll find so much fissible material that it'll supply all their power for seven years. You should read it, it's -"

"Wait, wait," Adalia interrupted. "CNN and Fox said there hadn't been any nukes."

"Well, of course," Betty said, clearly feeling it went without saying. "They're the liberal media, of course they'd say that."


	3. Some

Collateral Damage

"Excuse me."

It was February, around lunchtime, and an unusually pleasant day, so Adalia had decided to take a walk through one of the nearby parks.

"Oh. Yes?"

"I'm sorry to bother you, but my little boy's run off, have you seen him? He's, well, he's stripped naked it seems," the woman said with a nervous laugh, "so I'd like to find him before he causes any trouble." Her tone was light, but it sounded slightly forced.

"No, sorry, I haven't. I'll keep an eye out."

"Well, thanks anyway." The woman continued along the path.

_I wonder how old he is?_ Adalia thought to herself. She was glad Adrian had grown out of pulling his clothing off in public. She wondered what he was doing right now. He might be outside right now too, if his preschool decided the weather was good enough, although he'd have to be bundled up in his snowsuit first. No nudity for him this time of year. If there was snow there, he might make snow angels or snowmen, or just jump around in it.

She was glad to be at college, but she felt sad at the idea she was missing him grow up. She'd wanted to go to the school, of course, and it wasn't like Mom needed her to be around for Adrian...

"Excuse me," a man said. "I'm looking for my daughter, have you seen a little girl? I don't know what's gotten into her, she's taken all her clothes off and run off." He sounded like he was getting frantic and trying, unsuccessfully, not to sound like it.

"I - no, I'm sorry."

"Thanks," he said, and broke into a tight jog down another path.

Further along ahead of Adalia a woman was sitting on the bench reading a book, a baby carriage next to her. She looked over, dropped the book, and jumped to her feet. Then she screamed.

Adalia sped up. The woman was groping at the carriage, like she was trying to find something she couldn't see, pulling out blankets and throwing them away without a thought, accompanied by a small yellow infant frock that fluttered sadly to the ground, and then she rocked back, looking around desperately.

"My baby, someone's taken my baby!" she screamed

There was another scream further away, as if in answer, then more all around, like a crack in the ice spreading outward.

And then there was a scream from above. She looked frantically for the source and saw a low plane in the sky. For a moment she felt relief that this was all it was, and then the sound become louder and she realized it was lower than she'd ever seen and still dropping. She watched in disbelief as it grew larger and the sound turned to a roaring shriek, and then it finally went out of sight for a moment behind the buildings, followed by a deep boom and cloud of debris.

Adalia turned and started back for the dorms, speeding up until she was running. There were stopped cars in the street with sweaters and shirts sitting in the driver's seat, and there were people on the sidewalks, some just staring up at the sky and others running like she was, and no one spared her a second glance. There was no one in the room when she got there, but she didn't think anything of it. She sat on her bed and took several deep breaths, then dug her cell phone out of her bag.

She dialed home automatically and held it tightly against her ear as it rang over and over. Then there was a click and the answering machine started.

Of course. It was a workday, no one was home. She didn't have their work numbers on her, or Adrian's school number. _Oh god, Adrian..._ All those parents running looking for their children.

All of them. All. She hadn't see a single child. _Adrian_, she thought again, and broke down in tears.

She wasn't sure how long it was before she got control of herself again, but then she looked around the room for the first time and realized her roommate was gone.

There were clothes on the bed, but that was normal. Betty wasn't a slob but she wasn't tidy either. Adalia tried desperately to remember if it had been like that in the morning, and couldn't. She stared at Betty's side of their room for a solid minute before her eyes caught on the bookshelf. Math and history textbooks, various examples of Christian fiction, and a leather-covered bible. She reached for it and pulled it off the shelf, opening it at random.

_There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it._

She read on, searching for meaning.

_Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry. _

_I speak as to wise men; judge ye what I say. _

_The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? _

_For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread. _

_Behold Israel after the flesh: are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar? _

_What say I then? that the idol is any thing, or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is any thing? _

_But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils. _

_Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of devils. _

_Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? are we stronger than he? _

_All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not. _

_Let no man seek his own, but every man another's wealth. _

_Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, that eat, asking no question for conscience sake: _

_For the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof. _

She closed the book and sat quietly for a moment with it resting in her lap. "For the earth is the Lord's," she whispered aloud. Then she stood and replaced it in the bookshelf, in case Betty came back, and she left the empty room.

Outside she ran into another of the students in the hallways.

"Adalia! Oh god," the other girl said. She looked terrified. "Do you have any idea what's going on?"

Adalia shook her head at the same time she said, "It's the Rapture."

"It's - what?" She looked stunned. "That's - it can't be."

"Have you seen Betty?" she asked. "If I can find her..."

"No, but she could be anywhere, most people are out and I haven't - looked for people, there's - Angela threw herself out a fifth story window, she -" Her face crumpled.

"I'm sorry," Adalia said, and she was, but she was pulling into herself, her own pain being enough of a burden. She added, "I think it really is the Rapture," and excused herself, heading back to her room.

She emptied her bookbag out, simply dumping the books and papers and notebooks to the floor. Then she worked her way through the room, stuffing things she needed inside as fragments of things Betty told her, themselves fragments of sentences and paragraphs, kept coming back to her to echo inside her skull, warping around until she couldn't keep track of what they'd been originally. Some will be taken, some left alone, in the falling of a tear, in the sounding of a scream.

Suffer the children.

It didn't take long to assemble everything of hers she needed. Then she looked again to the books sitting by Betty's bed, and carefully, almost reverently, took them down one by one and packed them carefully inside.

She swung her backpack on and then threw her winter jacket and the blanket from her bed over one shoulder, and she left again, heading back out to the streets beyond.

The first car she came to in the street she walked up to, opening the front door, sweeping the clothes aside and throwing her bag and jacket to the passenger seat. She sat down in the driver's seat, slammed the door shut, and pressed the gas peddle.


	4. Murder

Warning: This chapter contains some extremely racist language and even worse ideology.

* * *

Suicide

"Just stared at all of us, the blood draining from his face until he looked like a corpse, then he spun on his heels and walked back into the cockpit and locked the door. I didn't know what to think until the plane started to drop."

A woman's voice took over. She sounded competent and professional, and Adalia clung to that. "The death toll following the disappearances is still unknown. Fewer than half of the estimated deaths are thought to be the products of accidents, with most credited to the wave of murder-suicides that followed immediately after. The worst individual incidents were on planes, where the cockpit doors, reinforced after September Eleventh, prevented frantic passengers from intervening. Most of these are believed to be direct suicides with the passengers' deaths secondary, falling shortly after the disappearances. Others appear to be premeditated. One plane did a U-turn over the Pacific ocean only to crash into the first coastal city it came to. Another pilot called in for assistance, requesting to know where he could land, only to fly to the airport he'd been warned away from as full. Due to crowding, most of the planes there had not let their passengers disembark by the time of the crash.

"The murderers seem to have a variety of motives, although none so far have reportedly been found for questioning. One man who killed his daughter and her boyfriend survived his suicide attempt only to be beaten to death by the boy's father, and similar fates happened to others found. In another town, a riot broke out at the rumor the police had one alive in custody, nearly burning the station down before the police showed them the woman's body, having died of blood loss before first-aid could be given. The murderers disproportionately hit teenagers, especially girls or couples, and there have also been reports of workplace shootings, as well as at several Planned Parenthood clinics. One man attacked a hospital's critical injury ward, killing at least thirty people. Police urge parents to hide any children left after the disappearances, and that citizens should remain inside and refuse strangers entry."

She'd been driving for twenty-one hours so far. She'd stopped once for gas, finding the station empty and the store unlocked. She'd filled the tank, then debated what to do for a few minutes. Finally, she'd taken as much food as she could carry, but left the money in the unlocked cash register.

Adalia had been eating her way through it as she drove. There were few other cars on the road and so she was soon driving well over a hundred while holding a snack in one hand. Whenever she felt sleepy, she drank another of the energy drinks she'd taken. Her hands and then her arms and shoulders were shaking uncontrollably, but she felt awake enough to keep driving.

She'd called home every few hours, reaching the answering machine. She'd left a message saying she had left and was coming home right now, she had her cell phone and to call her whenever they got it.

She was heading northeast, and it was getting colder.

"A number of leading televangelists have spoken out on the disappearances, calling them a false Rapture. Others have gone into hiding after one man was ripped apart by a mob of former followers, apparently blaming him for their being left behind after the disappearances. And, as with every group, several have committed suicide following the news of the event. Unlike most recent suicides, most left notes, apologizing to God, and one also apologized to his flock for deceiving them."

"A number of people have spoken about what this means to the human race. Every pregnancy was aborted by the disappearances, with no new pregnancies reported. If the disappearances of fetuses are in fact ongoing, we will be the last generation of humanity. Several leading scientists have cautioned against panic, pointing out that, if the disappearances included pregnancies under the one-week mark, it will take a while before any new pregnancies will advance to the point they can be detected scientifically."

It was almost ten in the morning when she ran out of caffeine drinks. She turned off the highway. It was the middle of nowhere, but there was a small diner that looked like it was open, and she pulled in.

She turned off the car, then opened the door and stepped out, almost falling when she tried to stand. She took a couple of shaky steps, her balance smoothing out until she was walking just a bit unsteadily.

The door had a bell that rang as she opened it, and an older woman came out to stand behind the counter. There were a few men sitting in one of the booths as well.

"Hi, I'd - I'd like a coffee," Adalia stammered out. "Could I have one?"

"Sure. Sit down." The woman gestured to the stools by the counter.

Adalia sat carefully on one, placing her shaking hands on the flat countertop to try to still them.

"Here. You want sugar?"

"No, I think I've - no," Adalia said. She picked up the cup, her hands trembling and the coffee almost spilling before she could bring it to her mouth. She took a sip. It was bitter and hot.

"Are you okay?"

"I've been drinking. I mean, I've been drinking energy drinks, I have a long way to go, and now my hands are shaking, that's why." She looked at the woman and blurted out, "Are there any children left here?"

After a moment, the woman answered, "The youngest one left is a thirteen year old boy. But we lost a lot."

"The radio was saying that. I was hoping it wasn't true." She felt weird hearing the words, like she wasn't speaking but was just listening to two people talking.

"Adrian, and my brother Noah, they're - my parents, I can't contact them, and Adrian and Noah, they're both younger than me. Than thirteen. And I can't contact Mom or Dad. Do you sell drinks here?"

"You want more of those energy drinks?"

"I have a really long way to go. We live on the east coast. I have to get there, I can't contact Mom or Dad and they haven't called me back yet. We're Christian. I mean they're Christian... I really need to get home."

"You look like you need to sleep."

"I'm fine," Adalia said. "I know I'm shaking a little but I feel fine really."

The woman looked her over. After a moment she said, "We're got a case that was delivered two days ago. Before," the woman said. "I can give you that."

"Thank you."

"But listen. There's no way you'll be able to get all the way home without sleeping. Take my advice. Rest before you start driving again. The last thing your parents want is for you to make it through the disappearances only to die in a crash."

"I - yeah. I will."

"I'll get the case for you." The woman headed out of sight.

Adalia sipped her coffee and looked around the diner.

One of the men said, "Hey. Where are you from?"

"I was in California."

"Is it bad there?"

"I don't think so, not worse. The kids are gone, and there were empty cars and a plane crashed. But I left right afterward and I don't know what else happened. Sorry."

"Thanks," he said. "It's hard to know, with the news like this, it's all just rumor. I've heard guys swearing the whole place sank into the ocean."

"No. Nothing like that."

The woman returned, carrying a shallow cardboard box filled with cans, held in place by clear, heavy plastic.

Adalia gulped down the last mouthful of coffee. "Thank you. Um, how much?"

The woman shook her head. "It's free. We're all in this together, after all."

Adalia started to cry again. "Thanks," she managed.

"Just get some sleep, okay?"

"Okay."

She didn't immediately - she drove off, wanting to get a bit further on the highway first, and away from people, even if some of them were nice.

The car she (had borrowed? stolen?) was in was a nice one, probably only a few months old and with soft, velvety seats. Adalia lay down in the back and pulled the blanket over herself, hoping she didn't take too long to fall asleep. She really wasn't tired.

Adalia woke with a throbbing headache that ebbed slightly with each breath only to crash back down on her. She held still, hoping it would stop hurting if she just stopped moving entirely, but it only got worse. She sat up, sending a worse wave of pain through her skull, and fumbled for the case of drinks, digging her nails into the plastic. She managed to tear open a large enough hole after several tries and wiggled one can out. She popped in open and drank it all, shuddering at the taste. Then, guessing she was dehydrated, she twisted the cap off one of the juice bottles she'd taken and swallowed about a third before she was hit by nausea.

Aside from the caffeine withdrawal, she didn't feel like any time had passed since lying down. She capped the juice again and sat back, breathing deeply and swallowing the slick sweet-sour-empty taste so it wouldn't sit in her mouth. After several minutes, her mouth wasn't watering and she'd stopped gagging, though her stomach still felt unsettled. She searched through the food and found a bag of baked potato chips, then got carefully out of the backseat, trying not to make her headache any worse than it had to be. She leaned against the side of the car, opened the bag and put a chip in her mouth. When she didn't throw up, she chewed it and swallowed, waiting to see if she felt nauseas. She didn't. After another few moments she actually felt the beginnings of hunger, so she finished the bag and then climbed into the driver's seat, turning the car back on.

"...crime has largely tapered off but riots continue. Reports indicate there are no children to be found worldwide. In China, there have been widespread reports of government officials being lynched. While there are widespread conspiracy theories claiming the government is behind this, it is especially prevalent among rural Chinese."

According to the clock, she'd been asleep five hours. Her legs hurt from lying curled up on the seat, but her hands weren't shaking any longer.

"Many countries are blaming Israel in the wake of the disappearances, hearkening back to the similar inexplicably of Russia's missile failure, and in a startling change, the most vocal opponents of this are the Muslim nations, with many Muslims speaking out to assert that they personally saw an Israeli or Jewish child disappear and that the rumors Israel was untouched by the event are foundless. Some commenters have suggested the only thing that prevented an invasion following the disappearances is the buffer zone of friendly Muslim states surrounding the country."

She started to drive.

"In America, a man was caught attempting to break into the White House carrying two five-gallon jugs of olive oil. He was shot by the Secret Service, who believed him to be carrying explosives. The man was apparently a member of the Dominionists, a Christian cult whose followers believe that by covering or 'anointing' things with oil they will come under the control of god."

Adalia passed more gas stations. One looked like it had been lit on fire, and she felt nervous about stopping. She started to run low, but she didn't see any new gas stations.

Finally, the car stopped. It was late dusk, almost night, and cold. She ate the last of the food, then put the remaining drinks in her backpack. There were still few cars driving, and she hadn't seen anyone for hours.

She put on her jacket, then backpack. She wrapped the blanket around herself and started walking. She'd passed occasional abandoned cars that looked like they had just come to a halt. She might find one, or a town.

She might.

Her breath was frosting.

-

"Hey! Need a lift?" the man called through the open window, one tattooed arm halfway out.

"Yes!"

He laughed, a deep friendly sound. "Get in, then. What are you doing, walking in weather like this?"

"The car I was driving ran out of gas," Adalia explained, sitting gratefully in the seat, her hands beginning to tingle painfully as they warmed in the truck.

"You're lucky I came along. You could get killed pulling a stunt like that. Don't you know that?"

"No, I...It didn't seem so cold at first, and by the time I realized I'd already gone so far."

"Next time," he told her, "you should stay in the car and wait for someone to come by. Might be boring, but you're a lot less likely to freeze to death."

"I'm in a hurry, though."

"So I gather. Where to?"

"Back home. I'm from Massachusetts. I was going to college in California. I mean, when it happened."

"Shouldn't your boyfriend have gone with you to help out?"

"I don't, at college I don't have one."

"Really, a cute girl like you?"

"I did back home."

"He a nigger?"

It was strange. She hadn't even noticed the swastika on the back of his neck when she'd gotten in. "No," she said, her heart starting to race. "He was white."

"Ever date one of them?"

"No."

Then he laughed again, as if it hadn't been a big deal. She broke out in sweat and started to shake slightly. "That's good. So many girls your age defile themselves with mud races. What's your name?" He had thick arms, muscle wrapped over muscle, and huge hands holding the steering wheel of the truck in a deathgrip.

"Adalia."

"Joseph," he introduced.

He kept talking and she agreed whenever he paused. Each time he asked a question her breath caught.

"What do you think of the disappearances?"

"My roommate said it was the Rapture." She didn't know what else to say, if mentioning the Rapture would be the wrong thing or if not mentioning it, that was the wrong thing.

"Where's she now?"

"Gone," Adalia said.

"Sounds about right. God took her, like He took the kids." The man glanced at her with a half smile for a second before turning back to the straight, empty road. "He took those who were too delicate to face the coming Race War, so they'd be spared. You know, not one of the chinks disappeared."

Adalia agreed.

"It's going to be hard, the next few years. They outnumber us worse than ever now. It won't be enough, of course, there's no way they'll be victors." He laughed again, the same as before. "Dumb as a bag of hammers. Deer, now, they're smart enough to run. I've bagged some before, and it's not half as hard as deer. Fact, I'm planning to do a bit of winnowing now that it's time, even the odds a tad before the uprising starts. Got my gun in the back and everything."

He glanced at her with something she thought was concern and something she thought was kindness. "It'll be pretty rough, though, the first few years. After you meet up with your family, make sure you find yourself a safe place with people to protect you. Maybe that boyfriend of yours. I'd hate to think of a sweet girl like you grabbed by those animals."

Adalia agreed.

He stopped for gas, and Adalia waited inside the truck as he pumped it. There was a clerk here, a town not much further, and she wanted to run out and beg him to help her, tell him what the man had said. And she was terrified that she'd fail, she'd just tip him off that she was afraid of him and he'd just kill her before she could get to safety. Terrified that she'd beg the clerk and he'd hand her back over with a smile, like in horror movies where safe harbor is never anything more than a ruse to lead you back like a lamb to the slaughter. And she stayed where she was.

He got back in, looked as her and said, "Damn, girl, you look scared. I'm not going to hurt you, nice girl like you."

"Sorry," she squeaked out. "It's just so much has happened."

He accepted this, just repeating what he said about making sure she found people to protect her after she got home.

It was a little after dawn when she finally saw an abandoned car that looked like it had coasted off the road.

"Excuse me! Could you let me off here?" She was terrified of asking but more terrified of losing the chance. "There's a car."

He slowed, but gave her a questioning look. "I've still got a ways to go this way," he told her. "It's no problem." They halted a few feet past the car.

"Yes and thank you I really appreciate it it's only I'm afraid there might not be any cars when we stop, I've still got to go pretty far north and all and there might not be anyone willing to give me a ride," she babbled.

"That's true. I wouldn't want to maroon you." He got out of the truck too and pushed the car back onto the road. It was still idling.

"Make sure it's got gas," he said. "I've got plenty in the tank, I can fill it if it's low."

"Thanks I'm so sorry for the trouble."

She got in the car, shifted it into park and then tapped the gas peddle. The car rumbled a bit and she watched the needle creep up to about a third of a tank.

"I've got plenty," Adalia said.

"You sure?"

"Yes I wouldn't want to take your gas when I don't need to, you've already helped me so much."

He nodded, getting back in the truck. Adalia stared at the license plate, then shifted the car out of park again and began easing forward.

For a while they drove with her in front. She whispered to herself the same words over and over. Finally there was a turn and he took it.

She waited, driving further until she'd put distance between them. Then, as soon as she dared, she pulled off the road and took out her phone.

She dialed 911. A harried voice answered her after several rings with, "If this is about your children..."

"No. I'm sorry to bother you, but I just met a murderer." She said where she was, then, "I don't know who to call. I can tell you his license plate number."

"What is it?"

She repeated the letters and numbers. "It's a red truck," she said.

"Why do you think he's killed someone?"

"He told me he shot people. There was a gun in the back and he said he'd was going to shoot people and that there was going to be a race war. That he was going to fight them."

He'd saved her life.

"Please, I don't know who the police are here."

"Can you describe him?"

"He's - he's really big, and he's got tattoos, a swastika on the back of his neck and black ones on his arms I didn't recognize."

"Okay. What's your name, miss?"

"You can't tell him I told you. Please." She was shaking all over, quivering like jelly. "Please, he knows my name. I said where I live. I'm white, he didn't hurt me because I'm white, he said he killed people who betray their race you can't tell him." She was suddenly certain he'd come driving up right then, ask her why she'd stopped, realize what she'd done. "I swear I'm telling the truth, I swear, please, I have to get going."

The operator promised he'd pass it on to the police, and Adalia hung up and stomped the gas peddle, sending it roaring back onto the road and away as fast as she could, feeling sure he was behind her, that he'd seen it and realize -

He didn't. She drove, and she only passed cars going in the other direction.

He'd saved her _life_.

She turned north.

-

The first gas station had signs saying regular was twenty dollars. She'd have stopped anyway, after what had happened, except that she was out of the empty areas now into more densely populated places, and she knew there would be another one at any exit she came to.

The next station offered it for a dollar a gallon. She was confused, but pulled in.

"No one's driving," the gas station attendant told her. "No one's going on trips, no one's going out unless they have to, and even a lot of commuters are staying home. I wouldn't even be here if it wasn't close to home. And there are just fewer..." He trailed off.

She filled the tank completely.

Adalia was starving. She tried a fast food place, buying two cheeseburgers and their largest coffee.

She hadn't been in the higher population areas since she'd left California. After the initial traffic jams and pileups, the roads had been mostly clear, just the occasional wreck she'd gone around.

It wasn't too bad here. She could see they'd been cleaning things up, removing the worst of it. Some areas were simply cordoned off, and Adalia avoided thinking much on this, turning both the car and her thoughts around them. In other places the wreckage was visible, moved off to the side so it wasn't impeding anyone but not yet removed, and sometimes she drove past blackened buildings.

She was still listening to the radio. What for, she didn't know.

"Crime rates have now dropped below their pre-disappearance levels as the hysteria ebbs."

She'd tried the previous owner's stations, finding classical music, static, and a number of shrill voices condemning her as a sinner. She was listening to NPR now.

"In more positive news, police apprehended a man believed to be the serial killer behind the shootings of several black and interracial families."

She stabbed randomly at the buttons, changing it back to one of the shrill voices.

"Repent!" shouted the radio. "Repent!"


	5. Finding

The Ark

Home.

She pulled into the (empty) driveway and walked up to the (dark) house past the (full) mailbox to open the (unlocked) door.

She stepped into the empty house.

It looked the same as always. Magazines scattered on the couch, library books on the stand by the door, videogames spilled before the TV, a sweater draped over the arm of the rocking chair, like they had just gone a moment, like she'd come home before them and in a minute she'd hear them pull into the driveway, the engine turn off, the sound of the car door being shut firmly, the faint sound of steps, then the seal of the front door giving as it was pushed in. Mom or Dad would be standing there puffy in their winter jacket, cheeks red from cold.

The answering machine was blinking red. She pressed the button and sat on the chair next to it, and listened to her own voice, repeating the same things over and over as if all she had to do was be clear enough.

There is a difference between knowing and believing, and so she cried.

-

She woke around noon. For a moment her thoughts fumbled to remember where she was, then for another she felt safe - she was home - before she remembered that she was alone.

Her parents were gone, Noah was gone, Adrian was gone. And she was left alone.

She'd gone this far for them. She tried to think of what to do next, only to find a void. If they were gone what did it matter?

She got up anyway, pushing the blankets aside. If she didn't think, it was like they were still there, small things out of place like they had set them down and just gone to another room for a moment. She could almost believe it as long as she didn't look for them. She took a long shower, scrubbing her skin red. She dried off, putting on fresh clothing, and sat, thinking of nothing.

Finally, she became aware of hunger, and she got up and walked to the kitchen, avoiding looking at the answering machine. There was frozen food in the freezer, and she put it in the microwave and then stood and watched the seconds count down.

She ate, starting to think of what to do.

She was pulling into herself again, but it was harder this time, like she was collapsing into nothing. It had been easy to stop thinking of others when she was scared for her family. Thinking of them, she couldn't think of anything else, just the loss. But trying to cut herself off from the memory made her feel there was nothing else left to herself.

Adalia thought slowly, haltingly, that if this was the Rapture, she needed to find the right church, the one that taught the right God. The one taught to the people who'd vanished.

But the people who knew that would have vanished. God had taken them for knowing it.

Some might have not been good enough, Adalia thought. Ones who were told but hadn't believed properly, relatives perhaps. They could know what the disappeared had known, or maybe the church of the disappeared would have things left, pamphlets or written sermons she could read.

Maybe if she believed the right things, she'd be able to see them again.

Adalia didn't know what churches were nearby beyond the one her family had gone to. The right one would have lost its congregation, but she didn't know who had vanished in the area or which church they'd belonged to. Other people might, though. She hadn't been here, she didn't know who had disappeared, but other people would know.

She pulled her coat on against the cold and headed outside.

The first few doors she knocked on stayed closed, and at the next, the old woman who answered just shook her head and said she didn't know. Adalia kept going.

She was two streets further before she found anyone who could answer.

There were three families he knew on the street who had vanished completely, and all had gone to the same church. He'd been to the church once and hadn't liked it, but he could tell her where it was.

She thanked him and listened to his directions, trying not to look at the tire swing hanging from the tree in his yard. Her loss was enough. Then she walked back to the car where it was parked in the driveway, climbed in and drove.

The roads were clear of debris. There were fewer cars than she remembered, but there were cars. The only thing wrong were the dark houses, the empty yards, and that was an absence hovering at the edge of sight, something that didn't have to be acknowledged directly.

As she approached the church, she realized she recognized it. She'd gone by it before. It had an odd, distinctive cross perched on the roof, with a stand of six bent metal legs that she'd thought reminded her of a virus capsid when she'd seen it in the past. She didn't think that now. She thought of driving past with her mother sitting next to her, and pretended for a moment that it was still possible.

There were cars in the church parking lot. She slowed but hesitated, wondering if she was wrong about this being the right church. She only knew there were three families gone, it could just be a coincidence and the rest of the congregation remained. But then, they could be people like her, and she didn't have any better ideas right now. She turned the car in, parked it, and got out. She walked up the stone steps and through the double doors into the church.

Just inside, it was empty but lit, and she could hear a distant buzz of people's voices. A sign standing just beyond the door directed her to the basement. She walked down the center aisle, past row after row of vacant pews. It wasn't far but it felt like it, the quiet church making her uneasy. When she finally reached the end she paused a second before the pulpit, glancing up almost involuntarily at the life-sized cross hanging over it, each rib visible and skin sunken below like the victim of a famine.

She'd never liked seeing the cross.

She looked away, turned to her right and headed for the stairway, the buzz of voices growing louder as she went down. The stairs twisted around and then she was facing into the room.

There were kids. Kids, milling about with a handful of adults, kids maybe thirteen or even -

Even -

"Noah!"

The boy stopped and then after a second that felt like eternity, turned to face her, and it was _him_, Noah, her brother, he was still there She rushed over and hugged him. "Oh god I'm so sorry," came out in a rush. "I thought you were gone, I thought you were gone too."

He clutched back. "So did I," he whispered. "I thought it was just me."

"What - what happened?" she said finally, letting go reluctantly, still keeping hold on one of his hands.

"One of the other boys, in my class, Micky, when it happened he told us. He realized what happened before any of us, before the teachers. He, his whole family, they were gone, he called to be sure and then that was, it was certain. They were gone but he thought there'd be somebody left in the church because his mom had said so and we went there and there was, and he knew. He told us what we had done wrong, what we had..." He burst into tears and hugged her again, sobbing and hiccuping and trying to talk. "Mom and Dad are dead, they're dead and they're in Hell now and we're all going to die-"

"No, no that's not-" Adalia started to say.

"You have to convert, you have to say the words," he said desperately. "You have to say the words, you have to say them, what if something happens you have to, the pastor left a tape with directions, you have to accept Jesus before you get killed."

"Noah, calm down Noah."

He was almost smothering her and she tried to push him away, but he shook with terror and held tighter, his grip almost painful. "You have to, you have to, please, Mom and Dad are already not you too you have to say them Jesus will kill everybody who doesn't he said so-!"

"It's okay, it's okay, I will, shush, it's okay, I will," she told him, having no idea what she was promising.


	6. Careful

Large sections of the pastor's speech are quoted or reworded from Left Behind, as is the "careful" line. I'm not fluent enough in theology to create an alternative sermon covering the same ground as the one we're given, and I'm trying to stick as close to the book's world as possible, not just in the timeline of the Rapture but people's beliefs about it. If you've read the books already, then I'm sorry, and I'm also sorry if you find some of the pastor's speech a rehash because of that.

--

What You Say

Noah almost dragged her to the one in charge, a thin, slightly pensive man with dull brown hair. He introduced himself as Pastor Matthew.

"You're Noah's sister?"

Adalia nodded. "What's going on? Do you know?"

"It's the Rapture," the pastor said. "But I suppose you've surmised as much, if you're here. Our congregation wasn't a large one, and to the best of my knowledge, all of them are gone now. I was left behind like the rest of you."

"Why?" she blurted out.

He gave her a level stare and said, "I did not properly respect God. I was not devoted enough. I realize my error now."

Adalia didn't know how to respond to that.

As it happened, she didn't need to. He continued, "There's a video the Senior Pastor left behind for people like you. It explains things. Follow me, I'll show it to you." He turned and walked to one of the side rooms, gesturing her in.

Adalia filed into a small room. The only things in the room were a large television on a stand with a VCR, and several metal folding chairs. She sat down on one, clutching the bible in one hand.

The pastor - the _remaining_ pastor - pushed the tape in, and she heard the gears shift into place. The screen flickered and jumped.

It opened with a man in a well-tailored dark suit, standing in an empty office. Behind him was a large wooden desk of polished mahogany wood. The camera was centered properly, but the image was a bit more distant than it would be with something normally shown on TV.

"Hello," he said to the camera. "Either someone from my congregation has been left behind, or you've found this tape. My name is Jason Gall, and I'm the Senior Pastor of this church." He smiled kindly into the screen. "As you watch this tape, I can only imagine the fear and despair you face, for this is being recorded for viewing only after the disappearance of God's people from the earth. No doubt the desperate situation you're in has dawned on you. Though you finally admit to the truth, all true believers have been taken to heaven. All those who believed. Who, then, is left to lead you, the lost tribe, the prodigal lambs, to Christ?

"You are no doubt stunned, shocked, afraid, and remorseful. Fear not. God is merciful. All is not yet fully lost for you. Though you have lost your chance to escape the torments to come in this life, you may yet repent before the end and be forgiven. Though I and the others have left you, this video has instructions for you, so you may know the true faith and follow it.

"First, though, let me explain what has happened. Let me show you, even, for you'll see it's happened just as the Bible foretold.

"You won't need this proof by now," he said, and Adalia thought, _I thought _this_ was the proof,_ "because you will have experienced the most shocking event of history." He was speaking as though the disappearances were all the proof he was right. Didn't he, she wondered, need to prove that it was what the bible said? Wasn't that the whole point? "Still, it will help you understand what's happened to you, and, as if that were needed, prove that the rest of the Word shall come true as well."

The image of the man in the empty room vanished, replaced by white text on a blue screen. It read at the top "I CORINTHIANS 15:51-57"

Adalia felt a chill. Corinthians had been the name of the section she had read when she'd first opened the bible after the event. After the rapture.

The man's voice began again. "These are the words of the apostle Paul, follower and disciple of Jesus Christ." And he began to read the words aloud, as smoothly and confidently as if they were his own.

"Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed - in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has  
put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: _"Death is  
swallowed up in victory."_

_"O Death, where is your sting?_

_"O Hades, where is your victory?_"

"The sting of death_ is_ sin, and the strength of sin _is_ the law. But thanks _be_ to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

The dead raised? Immortality? What did that have to do with what happened? She wanted to ask, but the tape continued. The words vanished before she could reread them, and there was the room again.

"Let me explain what that means," he said. "When Paul says we shall not all sleep, he means  
that we shall not all die. And he's saying that this corruptible being must put on an  
incorruptible body which is to last for all of eternity."

Is that what happened to all the children? she wondered. Is that what happened to all the disappeared? They hadn't died - they'd been taken. They'd gone to heaven.

Her father had said her first mother was taken by God when she died. For several years, she'd explained it to people that way, saying, my mom's gone to heaven.

Adrian had been taken. And she wanted him back. _I'm a horrible person_, she thought, but she couldn't stop wanting it.

But the pastor hadn't finished. "When these things have happened, when the Christians who have already died and those that are still living receive their immortal bodies, the Rapture of the church will have taken place. Every person who believed in and accepted the sacrificial death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ anticipated his coming again for them. As you see this tape, all those will have already seen the fulfillment of the promise of Christ when he said, 'I will come again and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.'

"If you're watching this tape, then you know this to be true. People have been literally taken from the earth, leaving everything material behind. The true followers of Christ are gone, as, I am sure, the children. Up to a certain age, which is probably different for each individual, we believe God will not  
hold a child accountable for a decision that must be made with heart and mind, fully cognizant of the ramifications."

That's what happened to Noah, she thought, feeling sick.

"Those below puberty, as a rule, will certainly be taken, all the way down to the smallest of God's children, the unborn," the man continued in the empty room.

Noah. Noah had been left because he'd been born a few months too soon. Left here. Left alone.

Was it horrible to be grateful? Was it wrong to wonder, even still, what kind of a god...?

"I can only imagine the pain and heartache of a world without precious children, and the deep despair of parents who will miss them so, and I hope that there is some silver lining to this, that America is forced to finally accept that the unborn have souls, and that abortion is the murder of children, so that the slaughter of innocents need not wait for Christ's return to be stopped." He paused.

"Perhaps you still have doubts," the man said. "Perhaps you are ashamed to admit to your mistake and wish to deny it. Know this. Paul's prophetic letter to the Corinthians said this would occur in the twinkling of an eye. You may have seen a loved one standing before you, and suddenly they  
were gone. I don't envy you that shock, but know it for what it is.

"The Bible says that men's hearts will fail them for fear. That means to me that there will be heart attacks due to shock, people will commit suicide in their despair, and you know better than I the chaos that will result from Christians disappearing from various modes of transportation, with the loss of firefighters and police officers and emergency workers of all sorts."

Had they...? Adalia had no idea how many of the police had been taken, and she knew she'd seen some since the disappearance - the rapture. But it sounded convincing - surely the police were good people, so surely many would be taken. And things had been in such chaos, like there weren't enough of them to handle things.

"Depending on when you're viewing this tape, you may have already found that martial law is in effect in many places, emergency measures trying to keep evil elements from looting and fighting over the spoils of what is left. Governments will tumble and there will be international disorder."

"You may wonder why this has happened," and she did, leaning forward unconsciously in the hope of finally being told why. "Some will believe this is the judgment of God on an ungodly world. But that is to come later. Strange as this may sound to you after what you've seen, this is God's final effort to get the attention of every person who has ignored or rejected him. He is allowing now a vast period of trial and tribulation to come to you who remain. He has removed his church from a corrupt world that seeks its own way, its own ends. But his grace remains for those to find it.

"I believe God's purpose in this is to allow those who remain to take stock of themselves and leave their frantic search for pleasure and self-fulfillment, and turn to the Bible for truth and to Christ for salvation.

"Be comforted that your loved ones, your children and infants, your friends, and your acquaintances have not been snatched away by some evil force or some invasion from outer space. That will likely be a common explanation. What sounded ludicrous to you before might sound logical now, but it is not. Don't mourn them: be glad they have been judged worthy, and spared what's to come.

"Be warned, for what's to come will be the trials and tribulations. Only through great devotion to Christ and knowledge of the Scriptures will you be able to make it through.

"Be warned. This is what will happen:

"The Scripture indicates that there will be a great lie, announced with the help of the media and perpetrated by a self-styled world leader. Jesus himself prophesied about such a person. He said, `I have come in My Father's name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive.' Beware leaders, promises, and unification. Beware peacemakers above all.

"Let me warn you personally to beware of any leader of humanity. He may emerge from Europe. He will turn out to be a great deceiver who will step forward with signs and wonders that will be so impressive that many will believe he is of God. He will gain a great following among those who are left, and many will believe he is a miracle worker. Beware the deceiver. When you see one who sounds as if he speaks truth, know he speaks lies. When you see one who makes miracles, know they are of the devil.

"The deceiver will promise strength and peace and security, but the Bible says he will speak out against the Most High and will wear down the saints of the Most High. By this you may know him - by then, it shall be too late. That's why I warn you to beware now of a new leader with great charisma trying to take over the world during this terrible time of chaos and confusion. This person is known in the Bible as Antichrist. He will make many promises, but he will not keep them. You must trust in the promises of God Almighty through his Son, Jesus Christ, and no one else.

"The Bible teaches that the Rapture of the church ushers in a seven-year period of trial and tribulation, during which terrible things will happen. If you have not received Christ as your Savior, your soul is in jeopardy. And because of the cataclysmic events that will take place during this period, your very life is in danger. If you turn to Christ, you may still have to die as a martyr. Be comforted. It is better to serve in heaven than to rule in Hell, better to die in the service of Christ and live forever, then to live another month during the times of tribulation, during the Hell on Earth.."

"It doesn't make any difference, at this point, why you're still on earth. You may have been too selfish or prideful or busy, or perhaps you simply didn't take the time to examine the claims of Christ for yourself. The point now is, you have another chance. Don't miss it. These are dangerous times. You may not live to convert next month. You may not live to convert tomorrow. Act.

"The disappearance of the saints and children, the chaos, and the despairing of the heartbroken are evidence that what I'm saying is true. Pray that God will help you. Receive his salvation gift right now. And resist the lies and efforts of the Antichrist, who is sure to rise up soon. Remember, he will deceive many. Don't be counted among them. Better to die in this life than lose your place in the next.

"The deceiver himself is only the beginning. Nearly eight hundred years before Jesus came to earth the first time, Isaiah in the Old Testament prophesied that the kingdoms of nations will be in great conflict and their faces shall be as flames. I believe this portends World War III, a thermonuclear war that will wipe out millions.

"Bible prophecy is history written in advance. I urge you to find books on this subject or find people who may have been experts in this area but who for some reason did not receive Christ before and were. Study so you'll know what is coming and you can be prepared. You can find some hints in the writings of your fellow Christians that will help you understand where to look in the Bible.

"You'll find that government and religion will change, war and inflation will erupt, there will be widespread death and destruction, martyrdom of saints, and even a devastating earthquake. Be prepared. The Scriptures can guide you, allowing you to protect yourself from the worst of the horrors that fall on the unbelievers.

"God wants to forgive you your sins and assure you of heaven," the tape pastor said. "Listen to Ezekiel 33:11, `I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.' If you accept God's message of salvation, his Holy Spirit will come in unto you and make you spiritually born anew. You don't need to understand all this theologically. You can become a child of God by praying to him right now. You only need to know the words and believe them."

The living pastor paused the tape. The man on the screen froze in mid gesture, the electronic analog of an insect's shell left suspended in amber. Still. Empty. Dead.

"Do you believe?" asked the man who had been left untouched by God.

"Do I believe?" Adalia repeated numbly. "How am I supposed to answer that?"

He smiled like it was a joke. "Yes, I'd hope."

"I - it's not so simple as that! What makes him right and not - not the space aliens or whatever? That the bible says so?"

"Yes," he said simply.

"What does that mean? He said the bible said the believer would be saved. So a lot of them are gone, does that make the rest true too? I - I wanted answers. Some explanation for what happened."

"The Bible predicted the Rapture. How else could it have do so if it were not the truth, and if it's the truth, then all must be true, or none. The explanation..." the pastor said. "It's very simple. This is the last judgment, and the end times have begun. From now until the end, humanity will face cataclysm after cataclysm. When this is over, only the elect will remain. That's God's will."

"But - I thought Jesus loved us. What kind of god would do this? Let all these people die?"

"Careful," he said. "You think I'm wrong. But what if I'm right?"

Adalia shuddered involuntarily. His face had shut down, even his eyes looking guarded. It was outside her experience - something from movies where people muttered that the building was bugged, the government was watching, that they couldn't talk because someone might hear, not something for real life. "That's not what I mean," she protested. "I'm not arguing if it's true. I just..." She trailed off.

"Do you want to go where the rest of your family is?"

"What kind of an answer is that?" she shouted, on the verge of hysteria.

"It's a question, a question you should ask yourself."

"I don't know where the rest of my family is! I don't know if Mom or Dad died or if they disappeared or if there's even a difference between those things! I don't know if my parents are in hell or Adrian or -" Her voice was getting higher and higher until her throat felt like it was closing and she couldn't speak.

The priest patted her on the shoulder, the first sympathetic gesture he'd made, and waited for her to calm down.

"Tell me about your parents," he said.

She took a few deep, shuddering breaths, fighting down tears. "Mom - my mom, my mother died when I was little and Dad stopped bringing me to church for a year or two, and then he married Mom and they started going again, and they went every week almost it wasn't this church through and she had Noah." She stumbled over the thought of Adrian and finally burst into tears. "They went they really did but it wasn't this church and they said grace at meals and -"

"Sh..."

"I don't know I don't know I don't know," she said over and over until the words lost all meaning.

"No one can know but God," he said when she ran out of words, and it was comforting somehow. "God is just, and he will judge them fairly."

She sniffled and wiped tears from her eyes. She looked at him with eyes between hope and despair, and he continued, "Your duty now is for your own soul. To accept Christ is the greatest thing a human can do, to love God is beyond the love of parent and child, of husband and wife. You must accept Jesus into your heart, for that is more important than anything in this world. Understand, Jesus said, 'Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me'."

To see her parents again. To see Adrian. To comfort the panic in her brother's face, to escape the smothering fear of death and hell tangled together around her own heart.

"You must pray to Christ. You must say the words."

"I will," she promised. The sky could fall inward and crush her at any moment, her only family vanish when she blinked, God could tear her soul from her body and cast her into a lake of flame. "I'll say what you want. Tell me what to say."

He told her.

"Dear God, I admit that I'm a sinner," she repeated, devotion infusing each word. "I am sorry for my sins. Please forgive me and save me. I ask this in the name of Jesus, who died for me. I trust in him right now. I believe that the sinless blood of Jesus is sufficient to pay the price for my salvation. Thank you for hearing me and receiving me. Thank you for saving my soul."


	7. Beginning

The pastor's opening speech here is based on that of Bruce Barnes.

Of the End

Afterward, the pastor took her out to introduce her to the rest of the congregation, Noah staying close to her side. The men were calm and controlled with an aura of anger that seemed to float around them, redirected through their every word and action. There might have been fewer women or else they were simply less noticeable, faint, faded people who seemed to be slowly bleeding away into the air, embarrassed by their presumption to take up space. The pastor left them as Noah brought her to the other children.

Noah introduced to Micky.

"Hi," Adalia said. "You're the one who told everyone to come here, right?"

The boy nodded, looking terrified of her. "Everyone, after everyone disappeared all the teachers weren't sure what to do, they were trying to find the other kids. Something was wrong about the buses and at another school something bad happened they didn't tell us but they were all upset. I was the only one who knew they weren't coming back and I was scared because the teachers they were people who were left, and I said we should go home, and Jan, she lived close and said her mom and dad both had a minivan so they could drive us, only we went there and there wasn't anybody and then we tried Amanda's house and we - they - there, they'd..." He gulped, and some of the kids started crying. "It was like Mom said, people without God. We didn't want to go to any of the other houses and I thought we should go to the church so God wouldn't hurt us. Mom always said Matthew wouldn't get taken so I called him..." He trailed off, restarted with, "I wanted to find another adult like Mom said but I didn't know anybody else who was still here and I was really scared I'm sorry about Noah I didn't know you were still here I'm sorry I'm sorry -"

"No, no," Adalia had said, kneeling next to him and shaking her head. "I wasn't here, I just got back, I'm so glad Noah had someone to take him here, that he wasn't left all alone. Thank you." She thought of what he'd said, asked, "The other adults, are any of them from the church?"

Micky shook his head. "Some of them were married to somebody. Everybody who was a member of the church is gone."

"Except you."

He shook his head more vigorously. "God would have taken me, if I'd really been."

-

She'd taken Noah home. He was dressed in someone else's clothing, which he explained he'd gotten from the church. They'd stayed there for the last few days, eating sandwiches made by some of the women and spending the night in sleeping bags one of the men brought.

Back home, he'd settled into the couch, knees drawn up to his chest. Adalia wasn't sure what to do. She boiled water and made mac and cheese from one of the boxes in the cabinet.

When they sat down at the table to eat, Adalia thought of the other children still at the church. "They can't just stay there," she said.

"Pastor says that they'll go home with some of the families. Almost everybody adult lost their kids. But he wants to wait until it's safer and everything's calmed down."

"What about their families?"

Noah's mouth quivered. "I didn't go in but Micky and Amanda did and her parents, they'd killed themselves."

Adalia remembered the children crying. She didn't know what to say.

When he finished his bowl he just sat there. "Come on," she said, herding him back to the living room. "Have you finished Final Fantasy Ten?"

"Almost," he said.

She turned on the TV, meaning to switch it to input. A news channel flashed onto the screen. Something was happening at the UN, and she hesitated.

A young blond man was giving a speech about the vanishings, talking about how in this time of trial people needed to come together for the common good, work to help their neighbor and better the world.

It was inspiring, but it would have been a lot more so if Adalia hadn't thought, He doesn't realize the world is ending in a few years. In that light, talk of building a better world was empty and hollow. For who? There were no more children.

After a minute, she switched to an input channel and turned on the playstation, handing Noah the controller. She sat next to him and watched him play.

-

"Adalia," someone was hissing. There was brightness flooding through her eyelids, and she blinked them open to see a panic-stricken Noah.

"What is it?" she said instantly.

"I dreamed everyone was gone." He looked like he was about to cry. "I woke up and your room was empty and there was no one outside and no one in the other houses and -"

"I won't vanish," she promised. "No one's going to vanish, not a second time."

"What if you do?"

She hugged him. "I won't. If Jesus comes back, I'll tell him, you ought to get Noah first, he's an even better Christian than I am." She let go, looked at him in the face. "Besides, the pastor said Jesus won't come back again until the Glorious Appearing. We'll see him there and walk into heaven together."

The clock by her bed said it was a little past five AM, and Adalia doubted either of them woould get back to sleep. "Come on," she said. "Let's watch Cardcaptor Sakura and I'll make breakfast."

After breakfast, Adalia drove back to the church for the morning service.

They were there early, although plenty of people were already there. Adalia left Noah in the main room and tried to find the pastor.

"Excuse me," she said when she found him.

"I wanted to ask you something, about the kids, their parents, I-"

He nodded calmly, as if expecting this. "We can talk in my office before the service," he said, leading her down the hall. He sat behind the desk and gestured for her to take the smaller chair in front.

"I - I wanted to ask about the kid's parents," Adalia said. "They're not here. Why aren't they here?"

"Many of their parents are no longer in this world," he said.

"Yes, but this was Noah's whole class. They all think their parents are dead. But there weren't that many taken. Most of them must still be here."

He nodded, looking serious, looking sad, looking like she had mentioned something he had struggled with before coming to a decision. "I've been reading the Gall's notes. I've been looking over the timeline," he began. "You understand, this is the end of things, and that it's a choice between heaven and hell. And there are so many ways for a soul to fall into hell. There will come a time when there is a mark forced upon the world's population, and anyone who takes it will be condemned. You understand, this is not a decision I made lightly. But knowing this, and the truth of what has happened, how could I send them home? How could I risk condemning even one of those precious ones to an eternity of torture for having the bad luck of a parent remaining?" He paused. "You understand, I don't make this decision lightly. But God delivered them to safety here. I've recorded their addresses and I will send some of the new faithful to see if the parents can be convinced and brought to God. But loyalty to one's family can never come before loyalty to Jesus, and with everything the poor children have already gone through, I would do anything not to force such a choice on them." He was so earnest, so sincere, his voice so quietly sad, that all Adalia could do was nod.

"I understand," she said. "It's...everything is different, now."

He nodded, and she thanked him for explaining and left, returning to the main room to sit next to Noah. A few minutes later, the pastor came out and stepped up to the front of the room.

"Normally," the pastor began, "speaking up here from this pulpit would mean I had some kind of authority. But we're all in the same boat these days. All of you missed the signs, just as I did, and I'm as new a Christian as many of you. I can, however, offer those of you who have been saved hope for what comes next. For those of you who have not yet completed the transaction and received Christ, I implore you to do so.

"First, I would like to open the floor to my new brothers and sisters in Christ, for those who have received their Savior and wish to confess it before the congregation -" People were on their feet before he'd even finished speaking, jostling their way to the front. The last time she'd seen people queuing up like this in a church, it had been for communion, and it hadn't had the disordered press she saw here. She remained seated. She had no story to tell.

Perhaps her experience had been different than for the rest of them. The first one was a man. He said he'd lost his wife and daughter, spoke of his misery and searching, of how he'd heard of the church from them, then at length of his experience of coming, seeing the video, his soul-searching and realization in God.

They were passionate, as people at the churches she'd gone to hadn't been, but Adalia sat stiff and uncomfortable as the hour passed and person after person spoke. She felt embarrassed for them as time wore on. A few spoke movingly of loss, but most felt narcissistic, speaking of their relationship with God at length, how they'd experienced the conversion, how they'd come to believe, repeating the same phrases as the person before them and after them. She didn't understand why they seemed to need to speak anyway.

Noah was fidgety, growing worse as noon came and went. She'd made a bigger breakfast than usual that morning, but she hadn't intended it to be enough to last them through lunch. Finally, at three, the pastor called it to a halt. He said there would be a second meeting at six, this one to outline what was next for the congregation.

He led them in a closing hymn. Adalia tried to sing from her heart, but she just wanted to leave by then. When it ended, people began to slowly exit the pews. A lot of the adults seemed unwilling to leave, but Adalia and Noah made their way quickly through the crowd to the bathrooms, then out.

She hadn't wanted to spend money, but they both were ravenous, so she stopped at the first drive-through and bought cheeseburgers, eating them in the car before heading back home.

Adalia had intended to read the bible, but she felt drained. She turned on the television again, wondering if the news had begun reporting that the vanishings had been the Rapture. Instead, they were covering the handsome blond man she'd seen giving the speech at the UN.

She could almost hear her father complaining about the cult of celebrity created by the deregulation of the news industry. Then she felt miserable. She tried to focus on the news anchor and let the words drown out her thoughts.

"...in the president of Romania's historic speech to the UN, he brought up the leading theory put forth by the scientific community, nuclear resonance. We'll ask our leading analysts what they think of politicians endorsing scientific theories." The scrolling headlines below reported that attacks on Planned Parenthood buildings continued, with seven killed in the most recent firebombing.

The scene switched to a panel of men. "Normally, I'd say I'm tired of politicians supporting whatever crackpot theory they think will get them voters. We all remember the fiasco of so-called "intelligent design". And I hate how the average guy on the street ends up making their decision based on which politician happened to be more photogenic. But this Romanian guy is a breath of fresh air. He hasn't thrown his weight behind whatever theory he liked, he's come out in support of the scientific community and let them decide what's right."

One of the others broke in, "I thought I was dreaming when he answered that reporter's question about believing in it by saying that if the scientists came up with a better theory tomorrow, he'd switch his endorsement without a second's thought. It's rare you see a politician humble enough to admit he doesn't have all the answers and is going to defer to the guys who do, really a breath of fresh air."

The rest of the panel said much the same. She rolled her eyes, wondering why they needed six people to say one thing, and tried another channel. But the man was everywhere, in between mass memorials for the vanished, having his soundbytes replayed in every discussion of reconstruction efforts, always being praised as a breath of fresh air, a sincere, kind, warm man with nothing but the best interests of the citizenry at heart.

Adalia gathered he'd only recently taken the presidency and only arrived in America yesterday, but he was renowned as part of international anti-war efforts, a chairmember of a leading famine relief organization, and on good terms with, apparently, everyone. It seemed odd he'd be dominating the news, but as she flipped through the channels she realized there was little else to report on but the vanishings. She knew the truth, but people who didn't, who weren't Christian yet, would want to look away to something positive, a future they could support rather than some impossible horror in the past. They'd want someone to tell them what they could do next. And he was the public face of what the news was insisting was the scientific explanation, something about radioactivity building up from nuclear weapons, which was nonsense. But it was nonsense that let him call for the destruction of nuclear weapons and promise it would never happen again, and maybe people were so desperate they'd cling to any explanation that let them believe they could do something about it.

It was five, and she turned the television off to make supper. Remembering the last meeting, she intended to make something heavy. There were pork chops in the fridge, probably bought just before the Rapture. She dropped them into a pan and slathered them with ahso sauce. "I'm making pork chops," she called to Noah. "Do you want them with corn or peas?"

"Do we have creamed corn?"

"I think so," Adalia said, heading over to the cabinets.

"That, then."

Noah was opening up more. Over supper he told her about school. He'd just finished a project about global warming and he was full of statistics - how long until the rain forests dried up, how many years before the ocean currents stalled, the estimated extinction rate. "A lot of the books talked about estimating human cost, like famines from crop failure in Africa because of drought, because they were written before Israel had that formula."

"A miracle," Adalia said.

"The pastor said that too. He said it was in the bible."

"Speaking of which, finish eating. We don't want to be late," Adalia said, eyes on the clock. She put her dish in the sink as Noah gulped down the last of the creamed corn.

The second sermon was different. Adalia could feel it even as they walked in and took their seats, before the pastor even began speaking. There was a graveness, a pregnant weight.

"We're going to have to prepare," the pastor Matthew began. "I won't lie to you. This won't be easy. The antichrist will come to prominence soon, and our persecution will double and redouble. Before long, the mark of the beast will be implemented, and no one will be able to buy and sell without it. Past that point, even being seen in the open will be deadly, and buying necessities like food may be impossible.

"But we have an advantage they don't. We _know_ what will come. And we can prepare for that day. If we're careful, if God's will allows it, we can make it through the next seven years and see the return of Jesus at the Glorious Appearing. We can survive."

Adalia wanted to survive.

"Our first priority is to stockpile resources while we still can, and our second is to get off their radar and stay there. These two need to be balanced carefully. Right now, we can still move freely, but they'll be keeping watch so we can't escape for months or years before they come for us."

"The preliminary timeline says it should begin with the signing of a seven-year treaty with Israel. After that, there will be one and a half years of peace. In this time, a false religion will grow powerful. There will be a war after the one and a half years, then a series of disasters. After three and a half years, the antichrist will be indwelt by Satan itself. We may have as long as that before the mark of the beast is implemented, or we may not, but either way, it is vital we have completely left the public eye long before that point."

There was fear in the room, fear and excitement and will curling in the air above the congregation as thick as smoke. Noah was sitting close to her. She was sitting close to Noah. They held hands tightly, and she wasn't sure who was reassuring and who was being reassured, but they were scared and excited and they wanted - simply wanted, a racehorse standing before the track, a hunting dog straining the leash, and they waited to be pointed in an open direction and released.

And the pastor told them the plan.


End file.
